Violence on the streets

hhd

I consider that what the bankers and some other major global institutions do is IMORAL.

It seems to amount to legalised robbery.

It will, however, require widespread and co-ordinated international action to bring about any significant change.

Meanwhile I would like to see more visibility of the taxpayer funding to the banks and the repayments made by the banks to the taxpayer.

Cheers

Don

Embezzlement

Fraud

Theft

Those three crimes for sure, and possibly leading to other offences such as tax avoidance and perhaps even gambling, but all of which completely legalized by corrupt multi-millionaire politicians of both Labour and Conservative Party cabinets going back many decades.

Some may say this is rightfully legal, but this is also a matter of definition, in Nazi Germany it was legal to murder Jews, but I don’t believe any decent thinking person would consider that anything other than outrageous criminality.

If you add the 16 billion pounds of Bankers bonuses with the private sector bonuses it totals over 35 billion pounds just for the year 2010.

While most people in the UK were (and still are) experiencing severe cuts, redundancy, job insecurity, pension losses, etc…

Although this £35 Billion is actually small compared to corporate tax avoidance money, no one knows for sure how much this is because of advanced accountancy fiddling methods employed by corporations that run rings around the Inland Revenue, but it’s speculated to be around 200 billion pound per annum, all going out of the UK every single year…

Corporate and company tax avoidance is also a legalized criminality that has existed since the 1950’s, a British invention that initially used the British Virgin Islands to ’legally’ bank some ill gotten gains out of the tax mans range. This was small fry in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s but the practise escalated in the 1980’s under the tyrannical reign of Thatcher (spit) and carried on escalating up to present times.

This day and age the off-shore accounts havens include BVI, Channel Islands, Switzerland, Monaco, Hong Kong, The Caiman Islands, and many other places too...

These places are where quite a lot of the deficit & debt monies of the Western World are hidden.

But anyway, it has been announced by the Tory Bankers Government that Businesses affected in the riots will get loads of compensation without need of insurance….

So this must mean the tax payer will foot the bill, not the insurance firms that are connected to banks because they need to keep the profits up to make big bonuses for themselves!

Comforting thought that isn’t it!  

Debs

(...at least i get to use the angry graemlin... 

although it always makes me smile for some daft reason)

Debs,

Its important to distinguish between crimes (illegal acts) and immorality IMHO.

Based on your post above, even you accept that the bankers (in general) haven't committed any crimes (illegal acts).

I presume you are petitioning for changes in legislation that would lead to a more equitable society, at least in the UK. I, for example, frequently speak to my MP about such issues but recognise that so do others. Not everybody seems to share my point of view. I guess that's one of the benefits/dis-advantages of democracy and a (relatively) civilised society.

Cheers

Don

Latest News

The ringleader of the Riots may be arrested soon...

They say he’s a ordinary bloke called... "Dave"

He rides a mountain bike.

Likes to hug hoodies, thinks they’re great.

He has a lot of influence in the UK

Has caused the redundancy of 1,000’s of coppers.

Took away the benefits from an underclass and -

encouraged them into private enterprise!

A Police dawn raid on no.10 Downing Street is coming soon

Don,

No you have not quoted me right... 

I gave the example of Nazi Germany because it was legal to them to kill Jews.

To some this would be the law and legal, however to others it would be nothing but murder and a heinous crime.

It depends how you define it, and that maybe individually based but a laws that allow acts of criminality are contradicting in itself and therefore becomes void (and a crime) by it’s nature of corruption.

It is important to distinguish between who is making the laws because it maybe the criminals themselves.

Debs

I like NewsBiscuit's twist on this:

http://www.newsbiscuit.com/201...sits-by-politicians/

Gavin

Debs

In a (reasonably) civilised society we don't go about inciting or using violence and other criminal acts in order to bring about change.

I guess that very few of us like the way the banks and other UK-based global industries are operating. Many of us consider the divide between the rich and poor in the UK is far too wide and that a large portion of our society feel disenfranchised. Your reference to Nazi Germany is way too far removed from our current issues to be relevant IMHO. 

If people are going to use violence in order to bring about change (and lets face it, the planet's history books are full of such records) then the usual process is to punish those who are guilty of violence, THEN set about changing the law. Otherwise we set a precedent for anarchy.

Meanwhile, peaceful protest, petitioning MPs and electing different MPs etc is usually sufficient to bring about useful change. However, in the case of the banks and other global industries, this will also need widespread co-operation with other nations - as I said before.

Cheers

Don

Is this a reasonably civilised society? What you answer depends on where you are within it.

Is it civilised that where you happen to be born determines your life chances? If you happen to be born in some postcode areas you will be more likely to live in poor housing; to suffer more ill-health; to die younger; to have lower educational achievements; to be less likely to gain employment; and be subject to, or to cause, crime.

Project that back 3 generations and what exactly is reasonable about that?

Derry

I put the word "reasonable" in there.

Things aren't perfect. Life isn't fair.

Are you really suggesting we go back to lawlessness?

I grew up in a small pit village in Co Durham. All my family had been miners. Dad came back from WW2 and started a small business. The buisness and family home were taken from us under a Compulsary Purchase Order to make way for a new road. We got sod-all for it and had to start again. The business couldn't support the whole family. I had to make a change in life direction and wound up in a bloody war in Oman.

I suppose I should have started a riot in Newcastle, smashed in shop windows and looted. Then I could genuinely sypathise with today's scumbags an disillusioned yoof.................or perhaps not.

I chose not. I prefered the "civilised" route.

.

Cheers

Don

Don

One person's experience means nothing in the grand scheme. Anyone can win the lottery, you seem to have figuratively speaking, but most cannot. Yet you condemn those who have not made that leap - perhaps you think that anyone can do it? The Index of Deprivation gives the lie to that.

I am suggesting that we need to go back to what is reasonable and reasonably equitable for all.

Cameron called it, months ago, a broken society, the day before yesterday he called it a sick society, yesterday (listening no doubt to his advisers) he called it broken again. So he falls into the same trap labelling whole sections of society either sick or broken without ever acknowledging that not all people, even the sick, behave in the same way nor that sickness has a cause which must be treated rather than just dealing with the symptoms.

There seems to be a generic reasoning, explanation, attitude even from some that suggest 'want' should automatically mean get, or be given.

Why's that then?

That's easy to answer...

It's being a Banker and automatically getting a big bumper bonus

Don,

just to put this into some kind of perspective…

the riots and looters (nasty as they are) have caused some tens of million pounds worth of damage to our communities in what may (hopefully) be a one off act of civil unrest.

However Bankers bonuses, Private sector bonuses, and tax avoidance is costing the UK well over a couple of Hundred Billion pounds most of which is quietly slipping out the back door every single year - so not just a one off either.

Which of the two above do you think causes the most damage to our wonderful civilised society?

Debs

> Anyone can win the lottery

Except me it seems - still assistant teachers, law students and millionaire's daughters go out robbing TVs, whereas I go on buying losing lottery tickets - as you say life isn't always very fair. At least it was refreshing to hear some of the culprits were repentant.  

Life was very unfair in Japan where good honest people lost everything in the floods and there was no rioting and looting - absolutely admirable people who deserve to bounce back. 

I'm sorry, but if somebody wants me to listen their point of view then behaving sensibly and respectfully will make sure I do. 

Call me strange, but destroying things, murdering people and pretending to help a Malaysian student who has come to this country to work hard and study and then stealing from him does not endear me to those who protest. In fact quite the opposite. I hope the guy from Kuala Lumpur is OK long term and that he has a great life and succeeds in what he chooses to do - heard him speak and he was fantastic. 

If I ever were in such a desperate situation that I needed to take things from a shop then I think it would be food for the family rather than trainers and 36 inch flat screen telly. As I said before whether it is people exploiting the situation with banks to get large bonus for very very little or exploiting the current situation to cause mayhem then I see no justification for either. 

Lets all hope this is at an end now and we can return to normality - people should be nice to another and I hate people who aren't nice (with apologies to great Tom Lehrer) 

Debs

I have been at pains to make it clear that I would like the Government to make the banks repay the taxpayer's bailouts, and for the the UK and other Governments to get together to ensure that bankers and other global industies pay their fair share of tax.

I have also made it clear that I don't and won't condone the wanton violence and criminality we have just witnessed on the streets of some of our cities.

I don't see any conflict nor any reason to chose one over the other.

Cheers

Don 

Derry

I used my own experience merely to illustrate what can be done. Lots of others in similar situations to myself did something similar ie to change their future prospects. I didn't win any lottery, either figuratively or explicitly.

Not everybody who tries, succeeds. Equally, not everybody tries.

I have also been at pains to make it clear that I would prefer a society where the ratio between rich and poor is much less than it is in the UK today - but not at the expense of dragging the 50-95%ile sector down to the depths of the lowest 10%ile. By all means cap high-level earnings and by all means collect the billions of avoided tax from the banks and other global industries to re-distribute in job-creation/welfare payments. I commend that sort of sentiment. Just make sure we don't drive these ventures completely away from our shores - hence my references to the international community.

Cheers

Don

Any time there is a sense of impunity, some people will make decisions accordingly. If they think they can get away with it, they will steal. Some other will destroy. Some other will attack, rape, torture, kill.

Demonstration made that contemporary British subjects are no different from the rest of mankind in this respect.

What makes you think that anybody considered that British people are any different to the rest of mankind in the first place ?

People are people. They come in all sorts of different colours, shapes and sizes.

I happen to consider that our society has shaped itself so that we have fewer extremist than many other societies and that in general our actions are less volotile. Nontheless, we still have some extremists within our society, just like most other societies.

Cheers

Don

You cannot go around shooting people dead just for stealing.  Arrest the thugs and looters then go round and trash their parents house.

Parents might take an interest in their kids whereabouts in future.......it would be fun to watch some looters belongings go flying out the bedroom window.

No, you used it to suggest that anyone can do it and those who don't are the authors of their own misfortune.

Unless you genuinely belive that there are over a million people in this country who choose to live feckless or criminal lives.

Perhaps you also believe that the 2.5 million unemployed do so through choice by not accessing the 1 million jobs available? Hang on, that leaves 1.5 million feckless and underserving?

Sorry Derry

You are completely wrong. You don't know me and you don't know what you are talking about

Cheers

Don

Well, I don't know you (not that it matters), but simple arithematic means that that the jobs available are far fewer than those who might want them - even at minimum wage.

One of the "messages" in my earlier post (I grew up......) was that if there aren't enough jobs, either create your own, re-train or re-locate. No need to sit on your arse and complain that "nobody cares".

As a further "example" of this, my middle daughter emigrated to Canada 12 years ago. She started her own buisiness and now owns two companies employing about a dozen people each. No lottery wins, just shear, bloody, hard graft.

And before you whinge, she isn't alone in this sort of endeavour. There are a surprising number of young ex Brit entrepeners setting up shop, both here and overseas.

There was no real justification for the recent riots. Yes, there are things in our society that should be changed IMHO, and that does include encouraging people to start their own enterprises and thereby creating more jobs for others etc. But meanwhile, there is no need for riots.

Cheers

Don  

Debs

I have been at pains to make it clear that I would like the Government to make the banks repay the taxpayer's bailouts, and for the UK and other Governments to get together to ensure that bankers and other global industries pay their fair share of tax.

That isn’t going to happen with the ConDem’s in charge is it?

In fact it’s the policy makers of parliament that allow the tax fraudsters to get away with it while many of the top cabinet members fiddle and diddle their way to personal wealth and riches too.

I have also made it clear that I don't and won't condone the wanton violence and criminality we have just witnessed on the streets of some of our cities.

No one here is trying to make you condone these riots, no one here does condone the violence it's a bit obvious it may as well go without saying, the point is trying to understand why it happened.

We won’t get to know why by all queuing up on this here forum thread just to verbally lambast those dirty rotten rioters and looters.

I don't see any conflict nor any reason to chose one over the other.

Well I do, the hundreds of billions of pounds that are swindled out of the treasurers coffers every year are far more serious because indirectly the effect this has on funding the infrastructure of society is crippling.

The Thatcher ideology needed a big pool of unemployed to enable them to inflict harsher conditions upon the employed. However, this new brand of Tory is even worse, they are quite happy to deliberately create an underclass of people who are unemployable often though poor education, or no education, disability, no fault of their own, etc and this underclass will add to threaten the unemployed who in turn threaten the working by being forced to accept lower pay and conditions. It’s a profits before people age we live in now, the profits big industries achieve in saved wages is huge and tax avoided out the UK to the chosen tax haven, more booty for the Super-Rich.

If we had a better fairer wealth distribution, money spent on education, the NHS, and state run industry with manufacturing [MADE IN THE UK] the imports would be lower and exports higher, it would be far better situation. Young people would have hope, something to aspire to, a job they would feel proud to do (Instead of stacking shelves for Tesco’s or flipping burgers in McDonalds).

But the Tory Gov plc don’t want that, most of them are jolly well minted with 5 star places to live in a sunnier place in the world. They only care about getter the money out of rainy wage-slave UK for the mega-rich bloated bank accounts of the tax havens.

So quite frankly, things being how they are, I would say the UK is doomed,

and unfortunately for us, those riots are only a little taster of what’s to come.

Debs